1. Technical Field
The present invention is a play apparatus housing a number of gas globes within a play space and equipped so that players may have fun capturing the gas globes, and relates to an educational play apparatus and system rendered so that players can receive preschool and primary education and while playing.
2. Background Art
As a play apparatus housing a number of gas globes within a play space and equipped so that players may have fun capturing the gas globes, the present inventor has proposed the play apparatus disclosed previously in Japanese Pub. Pat. App. No. H08-126769. This play apparatus is made up of: support posts stood in four places; a screen-off member consisting of a net-like material stretched across the support posts; a cover sheet provided along the hem part of the screen-off member; balloons accommodated within the space enclosed by the screen-off member; and electric fans installed at the top-end portions of the support posts.
By means of this play apparatus, air currents heading from the vicinity of the upper rim of the play space toward the bottom are set up by the fans, and the air currents are changed in flow direction by the bottom of the play space and by the cover sheet, becoming a swirling current that returns to the interior of the play space; the balloons provided within the play space are stirred up by the swirling current, and float and flutter about. This then lets small children who are players enjoy all sorts of games within the space in which the balloons are in this way borne aloft and dancing about, such as playing at capturing the balloons.
In this regard, although the importance of preschool and primary education is generally recognized, in the past the equipment for carrying such instruction out has for the most part been tools and materials that, in the form of picture-books and puzzles, are used on a desktop; there have been no tools and materials at all that enable educating while playing outdoors. For human beings fundamentally, movement of the four limbs, i.e. exercise, serves to stimulate the brain, and getting information in such a state serves to improve knowledge and scholastic ability. Likewise, implementing instruction while they are playing lets young children learn while their interest is held and they enjoy themselves, and improves the effectiveness with which the learning is acquired. Moreover, by learning under an environment in which a crowd is playing, commitments to and relationships with others are recognized, allowing practice in striving to make one""s intentions understood, as well fostering cooperativeness.
The present invention was prompted by the above-described current situation, with the object being provision of an educational play apparatus and system that enables preschool and primary education and while playing.
The present invention is a play apparatus with a plurality of gas globes being housed in a play space screened-off into a compartment and equipped so that players may have fun capturing the gas globes within the play space, and has to do with an educational play apparatus characterized in that educational information is displayed on the surface of the gas globes.
Educational information set out by the invention is information needed chiefly for preschool and primary education; to cite an example of this, if for instance the color of a gas globe is black, text that means thisxe2x80x94xe2x80x9cxe2x80x9d (Japanese signifying black), xe2x80x9cxe2x80x9d (Japanese signifying black), xe2x80x9cxe2x80x9d (Japanese signifying black), and xe2x80x9cBLACKxe2x80x9d (English signifying black)xe2x80x94and information that is their correlates would be applicable; and if the contour of a gas globe is star-shaped, text that means thisxe2x80x94xe2x80x9cxe2x80x9d (Japanese signifying star), xe2x80x9cxe2x80x9d (Japanese signifying star), xe2x80x9cxe2x80x9d (Japanese signifying star), and xe2x80x9cSTARxe2x80x9d (English signifying star)xe2x80x94and information that is their correlates would be applicable.
Young children who play games in the play space capturing gas globes on which educational information like that noted above is displayed come into contact spontaneously with aforementioned educational information in the midst of playing games, reinforcing information given them up to that point through care workers, as well as imparting information to them while playing together with care workers, such that they come naturally to comprehend the informational content of text like the aforementioned.
As described above, for human beings exercise serves to stimulate the brain, and getting information under such circumstances serves to improve knowledge and scholastic ability; likewise, implementing instruction while they are playing lets young children learn while their interest is held and they enjoy themselves, and improves the effectiveness with which the learning is acquired. Further, by learning under an environment in which a crowd is playing commitments to and relationships with others are recognized, allowing practice in striving to make one""s intentions understood, as well as fostering cooperativeness. Through the present invention, that fact that preschool and primary instruction may be carried out while playing games serves to improve knowledge and scholastic ability and to improve acquirement effectiveness, and demonstrates effectiveness in allowing cooperativeness to be fostered from the toddler stage.
Here, the aforesaid gas globes include all sorts, such as rubber balloons, rubber balls, hollow balls formed from hard plastic or soft plastic, and vinyl sheets made into the form of bags and blown up by charging them with a pressurized gas; furthermore their shapes, not limited to being spherical, may be lent all sorts of contours, such as stellate, rhombic and cubic.
The expressing of educational information on the gas globes is preferably by sectioning the surface of the gas globes into a number of display regions, such that educational information may be displayed in each display region. Doing so lets even more educational information be displayed using a single gas globe, and allows having young children master even more knowledge.
Likewise, the educational information displayed in each display region can be rendered so as to have an item from at least one set or more that includes the information, i.e., has interrelatedness. For example, the pair of related items xe2x80x9cxe2x80x9d (Japanese signifying red) and xe2x80x9cxe2x80x9d (Japanese signifying red) are displayed on a gas globe. Doing so allows having youngsters master with ease knowledge of the correlation between like characters.
With regard to the aforementioned capturing game, teachers at a kindergarten for example can lead the game by giving out instructions. To give a specific example, if the figure of an airplane and the letters xe2x80x9cxe2x80x9d (Japanese signifying airplane) are displayed on balloons (gas globes), a teacher may give out the instruction xe2x80x9cPlease get an airplane balloonxe2x80x9d to have toddlers play at picking out, from among the numerous balloons there are, balloons on which an airplane figure is displayed and balloons on which xe2x80x9cxe2x80x9d (Japanese signifying airplane) is written. Then for this sort of play, furnishing storage means that stores the gas globes that the players have captured enables, for example, organizing teams formed of several persons and letting them play games that make them collaborate and make commitments as a team in having them store captured balloons in the storage means, which enables fostering in youngsters the cooperativeness that accompanies teamwork.
Further, the educational information may be portrayed on the gas globes by displaying the educational information directly on the gas globes through printing or else another method; however, the educational information may be displayed on the gas globes indirectly by utilizing films on which the educational information is represented and applying them onto the gas globes. While on the one hand with some gas globes, such as for example balls made of hard plastic or soft plastic, printing onto their surfaces is difficult to implement or otherwise the printing costs are expensive, printing onto films, which is relatively simple and low cost, will do. Accordingly, simple, low-cost portrayal of educational information can be carried out in the manner noted above.
Thus if the gas globes are to be formed by inflating, through the sealed introduction of a pressurized fluid, bags made from a gastight elastic material, as with rubber balloons, the film can be made to cover over a gas globe by constituting the film from a material lent extensibility and forming it into bag-like or tubular shapes, and, after inserting a bag made from the gastight elastic material into the film formed bag-like or tubular, by the sealed introduction of a pressurized fluid therein to get the bag made of the gastight material to inflate together with the film.
If on the one hand the gas globes are formed from a hard plastic to have good shape retentiveness, the film may be constituted from a material lent heat-shrinking properties and formed into a bag-like or tubular shape, and the film may be cover-wrapped onto a gas globe by inserting the gas globe into the film formed bag-like or tubular and thereafter subjecting it to a heating process to get the film to shrink.
Further, educational information portrayal may be displaying it on a gas globe by pasting onto the gas globe a thin film material (e.g., a sticker or the like) on one side of which an adhesive such as a bonding agent is spread and on the opposite side of which educational information is represented. Representing educational information on the thin film may be by printing, and for letters/characters and shapes may be by punching out their contours.
The capturing game may be led in accordance with game progress information displayed by a display means, and video device can be utilized as the display means. Although the capturing game may as described above be led for example by teachers at a kindergarten giving out instructions, putting such game progress information on video and playing it back and showing it on a display lets the relevant game be conducted by transmitting the game progress information to the players. Then for example by having actors dressed up as various characters give a performance according to a story that leads the game, and by taping it, when the game is led by playing the video recording, the youngsters who are the players get drawn in by the characters and become engrossed in playing the game, which along with increasing the fun of the game itself enables improving the effectiveness with which knowledge is thereby acquired. Further, if given play apparatuses amount to a large number, although having performers dressed up as the characters give on-site performances would be problematic to put into practice, utilizing video for the large number of play apparatuses makes it readily feasible to conduct the game by means of performances in which the same characters act.
The foregoing display means may also be arranged by providing a number of information-displaying cards on which game progress information is indicated, so that the game progress information is given in a sequential display by showing the information-displaying cards in turn. A picture-card drama put on by kindergarten teachers is appropriate as such a display means. Through such a picture-card drama also, the aforementioned game may be led according to a story in which characters are made to appear, demonstrating the same effects as noted above.